It’s an ongoing task that you will have to think, write and build overtime but deliver in very short amount of time.
Your social media strategy can make the difference between a good and an excellent campaign.

Why sprint to finish the marathon

As we mentioned in the previous article about creating your crowdfunding campaign, building your community is a long and consistent task, like a marathon. The goal is to reach your community DAY 0 of your campaign, so they can Kickstart the early 24 hours. The marketing plan follows the same logic and try to concentrate the effect in 1-3 days.

Most crowdfunding platform algorithms promote successful campaigns by how fast they reached their funding goals. It means that the faster you reach your funding goal, the bigger your potential exposure can be from this platform. This additional traffic gives more exposure and more organic traffic to your campaign, reinforcing that success like a snowing ball effect.

Therefore, it’s very important to create a marketing plan that will focus on promoting the three first (and last) days of your campaign.

If you do things correctly, your campaign should look like a staircase.Big steps on each end, a long boring flat in the middle

What to put in your campaign? How to sprint?

Let’s start with the most obvious: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

For Kiwetin, we tried to attract more backers from those platforms and it was so-so.

Unfortunately we didn’t realize that we needed more research and AB testing to understand where was our potential backers but also how well our post, ads and campaign would work.

When we launched, our budget was not crazy but not insignificant either.

The ROI (Return On Investment) turned bad. The CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) was around $30. Kiwetin pledge was around $35. In simple math, for each game Facebook was selling, Facebook got 30$, we received 5$. We don’t even take in consideration production cost, shipping, insuring … Not worth it.

But here is the catch: we posted on every Facebook groups related to crowdfunding, board games and Kickstarter. It costs us nothing and drives more than 50 direct sales.

Here is a TLDR advice: don’t pay to reach new backers. Pay to reach your community to make sure all your Facebook, twitter, Instagram followers are aware that you are currently running a campaign. If you are not a marketing expert that know what you are doing, if the price of your pledge is low, your CPA high, you will lose some money. Don’t lose money. You need some to create your board game.

So, get guerilla marketing on this one. Organize contests, reach your community, post on groups (don’t spam or it’s counter effective), engage with your community, get noticed. Don’t follow the rules of the major companies, you can’t afford it. Be smart and keep in mind that each $1 you are spending has to bring more than $1.

So where should you put your marketing money?
In our experience: BGG. It’s expensive but worth it.